The root causes of child mental illness must be addressed

Dan Johnson

Monday March 04 2019, 12.01am, The Times

Dan Johnson

Monday March 04 2019, 12.01am, The Times

The Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland has highlighted a rise in the number of mentally ill children treated in non-specialist wards. It called for more child and adolescent mental health services after close to 100 children and young people were admitted to adult psychiatric units.

While it’s clear that action must be taken to stop this from happening, it begs the question of how we use prevention and early intervention to stop young people needing such services. Providing specialist services may seem an immediate solution, but an oversimplified view carries the risk of fundamental mistakes that can make the problem worse.

Instead, we need to ask why mental illness is a growing problem among children. The answer is hugely complex with no one reason. Mental